Rebecca Leighton '15 starts campus food pantry

After a year of planning and networking, the Nutritious U Food Pantry student group headed by U of M student Rebecca Leighton (B.S. Nutrition ‘15), is now piloting a food pantry event for food insecure students. Leighton is a second year graduate students who was prompted by survey results about food security to start a food pantry at the University of Minnesota. Leighton along with the Minnesota Student Association have been planning this project for several months. Leighton plans to open a permanent pantry to be open most days during the week.

“We don’t just want to provide emergency food to students who will use it,” Leighton said. “We want to increase their access to healthy food, increase their well-being and overall increase their learning potential.”

The first food pantry event took place February 21-23. “We assumed we’d get around 400 students over 3 days. Instead we got 491 on Day 1", Leighton shared with MinnPost this week. The next event will take place over three days in March, and there are discussions being held about launching a permanent pantry on campus.